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Mentors & Judges

Judges:

Foteini Agrafioti

VP, Research & Innovation at Architech

As the leader of Architech’s Research & Innovation team, Foteini is committed to pushing the limits of science through research that can affect the world in a meaningful way. Her team establishes open academic collaborations, and partners with top universities and research institutions to deliver technologies previously thought impossible.

Prior to joining Architech, Foteini was a founding partner and CTO at Bionym Inc., and is one of the inventors of the Nymi wristband and HeartID authentication technology. Foteini is a TED speaker, serves on the editorial review boards of several scientific journals, and was named “Inventor of the Year” in 2012 at the University of Toronto where she received a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Ilona Posner

User Experience Consultant

Ilona Posner is a User Experience Consultant and educator. Starting in Human Computer interaction more than 25 years ago, she was working in UX before it was a thing. She is constantly striving to improve experiences with technology by focusing on human needs and business goals, while accommodating technological constraints. Crossing industry boundaries, Ilona has consulted in large corporations and startups, in different verticals including technology, finance, telecom, healthcare, transportation, and education. Ilona enjoys tackling different challenges including User Research, User Centered Design and Evaluation, and Strategy. As experienced educator she has been teaching User Experience since 2000 at universities (University of Toronto, OCAD University, and the Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre) in both the graduate and the undergraduate programmes while also been developing and delivering custom UX training courses for industry. Ilona Posner holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

Gabe leads client projects, with a focus on partnership development and designing and facilitating co-creation workshops and prototyping sessions. His broad experience includes experience design, game design, community-building and mobile app development. Gabe has a MDes in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University.

Shannah Segal

Principal at Usability Matters

Shannah’s mission, privilege and pleasure is to continue to grow Canada’s most highly regarded user experience consultancy. She personifies the qualities of a small business leader – imagination, creativity, the ability to support a team, and the desire to see her clients succeed.

Shannah’s affinity for user experience comes from her genuine interest in people. In her many years as a principal of Usability Matters, she has worked with folks who manage media companies, deliver flyers, make cement, run airlines, design games for children, grant medical accreditation, manage libraries, trade mutual funds, cope with disability, suffer terminal illnesses, sell insurance, revitalize cities, work in call centres, are entrepreneurs, bloggers, students, lawyers, journalists, doctors, parents, immigrants, travellers, movie-goers, foodies, and sports fans. Her joy in understanding people ­ their hopes, hang-ups and humanity ­ is infectious and embodies everything she does.

Shannah has a BA in Communication Studies and training in Project Management, Technical and Creative Writing and Studies in Education. She is currently pursuing a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists.

·Likes to channel her old-time strongman and swing some kettlebells now and then

·Has a predilection for all things zombie

·Is diving headlong into the world of foresight and design futures

Mentors:

Jonathan Antflek

Service Design Analyst at Totem

Jonathan is a key contributor to Totem’s design team where he is currently an analyst. He supports content experience design, quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as key strategic consulting activities. Jonathan’s skill sets and experience resides in – research (primary and secondary methods), marketing strategy, gathering user requirements/needs, and developing insights.

Patrick Bachecongi

Senior Service Design Manager at TELUS

For the past 5 years Patrick has put the customer first for both TELUS and Koodo. He has held a variety of roles from product marketing & strategy to customer experience strategy and service design. His current mandate at TELUS is to evangelize service design principles across the organization and help build internal capabilities. His key measures of success are to increase enterprise wide “Likelihood to Recommend” while reducing customer effort. Armed with a toolkit of service design techniques and a proven track record, Patrick is relentlessly focused on driving to make service design an entrenched part of the way TELUS builds its products and services.

Daniel Iaboni, PhD

Senior Experience Architect at Akendi

Daniel is dedicated to creating and improving designs to provide an exceptional interaction among users, their environment and their tools. To achieve this goal Daniel utilizes knowledge from the fields of engineering, computer science, psychology and anthropology learned while completing a Doctorate in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo with a focus on human factors, cognitive ergonomics and user-centered design.

For the past 4 year, Daniel has been leading a team completing user research, UX design and usability testing for clients in a variety of sectors. Prior to joining Akendi Daniel was the user experience designer for Brock Solutions, and was instrumental in the design of web, mobile and kiosk interfaces used by airports and airlines around North America and Europe. In addition, Daniel has provided independent human factors consulting services for several large and medium enterprises.

George Jacob

Service Design Analyst at Totem

George is responsible for analyzing client business problems, challenges, and opportunities, as well as recommending optimal solutions and strategies customized to each client. George joined Totem after completing his MBA from The Rotman School of Management (U of T) where he specialized in Strategic Planning and Innovation.

He is well versed in understanding user needs through interviewing and analyzing customer journey maps which feeds into ideation & prototyping.

Julie Man

Senior Associate, Communication Design at Bridgeable

Julie strives to make complex data more accessible through visual communication, appropriately used media/methods, and an in-depth understanding of the target audience and their needs.

Julie is focused on creating visualizations of topics and processes to enhance communication and learning. Her research skills and domain-specific knowledge of biology and medicine are critical to the creation of accurate content for medical-related solutions. Julie has a BSc Hons Molecular Genetics from the University of Alberta and a MSc Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto. She is also a professional member of the Association of Medical Illustrators.

In his over 13 years of experience, Andres has provided Design strategy, Creative Direction, Information Architecture, UX Strategy, Art Direction and UI frameworks to design products from the ground up for companies such as Microsoft, Kellogg’s, Toyota, Subaru Canada, Legrand, Kia Motors Canada, Rogers Communications, WIND Mobile and Leo Burnett. Some of the applications he has designed include mobile apps, SAS, B2B, B2C, CRM, CMS, touch screen apps, enterprise websites, Intranet and Extranet portals.

Andres has built teams of designers and front end developers for three companies, and most recently, a Design Community of Practice for Architech. Previous to Architech he delivered over 100 interactive projects of all sizes with his company Pinxelar. He also is an instructor of Interactive Production Strategy at Humber College and an official mentor in several design meetups in Toronto.

John Di Palma

Content Experience Architect at Totem

John is an advocate for the humanization of technology, services, organizations, and the design methods through which each is addressed. He drives this mission throughout Totem’s service design practice, including its tools, processes, and cross-industry knowledge development. John joined Totem after completing the Master of Design program at Carleton University, with a thesis on service design consulting. His research involved leading international practitioners in this emergent field, with a focus on its collaborative methods. This work built on a background in mechanical engineering, product development, and human-centered design.

Stephanie Rosinski

Associate, Interaction and Service Design at Bridgeable

Stephanie is a multi-disciplinary designer & researcher focused on helping people connect with your business, product or service in new and meaningful ways.

Stephanie designs from 10mm to 10 000ft, collaborating to formulate the big picture and broader service, then dives in a builds the details out to perfection. Prior to Bridgeable, she¹s operated as Chief Experience Officer in a growing tech startup and has had the novel opportunity to bring design to various healthcare settings. Stephanie has a BDes in Industrial Design from OCAD University, with honours.

Bonnie Scott

Associate, Communication Design at Bridgeable

Bonnie is passionate about deconstructing and communicating complex ideas in medicine and science through visuals, writing, and interactive technologies.

Bonnie has unique training as both a PhD-level cell biologist and a biomedical designer. Working with diverse healthcare clients, she has played a key role in managing projects and developing content for academic and marketing publications, web and large-platform medical games and animations, organizational strategy tools, and co-creation ideation sessions. Bonnie has a MSc in Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from The University of Chicago.

Chad Story

Associate, Design Research at Bridgeable

Chad is a passionate researcher and strategist who blends theory and practice.

At Bridgeable, he assists teams in combing through data to find insights. He also coordinates the Bridgeable Pro Bono and Designership programs. He¹s worked extensively in financial services, helping clients craft customer experience strategies. His belief in the power of empathy brought him to Bridgeable to research co-creation as an alternative communication technique for people living with dementia. Chad holds an M.A. in Communication from the University of Ottawa. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Communication & Culture program at York University.

She oversees scientific multimedia projects from conceptualization to final product, and her interest in interactive media has led her to join the Bridgeable team. Her work extends to collaborations with groups like the Canadian Digestive Health Foundation, producing engaging educational pieces for the public. Her extensive life sciences background is rooted in her BSc degree from Queen¹s University, furthered by an MSc degree in Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto.